Advertising panel offers alterations.

A tentative and preliminary report suggesting changes to Bar advertising rules has been approved by the Advertising Task Force 2004 and, as this News reaches Bar members, should be posted on the Bar's Web site for comments.

The task force has rejected for now a proposal to require that all nonexempt ads be reviewed by the Bar before publication or broadcast, but instead offered an incentive program to encourage lawyers to have their ads prescreened.

The panel also could not reach agreement on whether the 30-day prohibition on direct mail advertisements in personal injury cases should be extended to criminal cases. The task force is offering three options on that.

Task force Chair Manny Morales told the group, which met by conference call September 9 following the cancelation of the General Meeting because of Hurricane Frances, that the plan is to get lots of input before meeting again at the Midyear Meeting in January.

"I'd really like to get to the point that here is what we've come up with for a draft for the rules and get comments," Morales said. "By the time we have our meeting in January and have heard in writing, in e-mail, and testimony at the January meeting, we'll be close to a final report after that."

That report will go to the Bar Board of Governors, which will send any final suggested role amendments to the Supreme Court.

The task force planned to write up the actions at its September 9 meeting, circulate them to all its members (several missed the teleconference), make any final adjustments, and then have the preliminary report posted on the Web site (www.flabar.org) by October 1. Comments on that draft can be sent to Bar Ethics Counsel Elizabeth Tarbert at The Florida Bar, 651 E. Jefferson St., Tallahassee 32399-2300, or at eto@flabar.org.

(Note: Because task force members were still reviewing a draft as this News went to press, some details in the preliminary report may have been changed since the September 9 meeting.)

At its earlier two meetings, the task force had been unable to reach an agreement on perhaps its two most high profile issues: whether to expand the 30-day bar on direct mail solicitations to criminal cases and whether to require prescreening of nonexempt ads.

Direct Mailing

The group was still unable to reach a consensus on the direct mailing issue, although several members said they have concerns about direct mailings to criminal defendants.

Morales, Tarbert, and other task force members said they had...